Data processing systems in the broadest sense are often provided with manually operable input/output devices, such as computer mice, to allow manual input by a user in addition to keyboard and voice inputs. With such manually operable input/output devices a user can perform operations such as pointing, dragging, and dropping, for example, to manipulate objects on a screen.
In modern applications, tactile feedback to the user via the respective input/output device is increasingly used, for example, to confirm a mouse click by imposing an inertial force or to attract the user's attention through force feedback.
The structure of such tactile feedback cannot be modulated and is therefore not suitable to generate more complex feedback to the user.
It is an object of the present disclosure to provide a manually operable tactile input/output device, a corresponding operating method, and a data processing system in which highly flexible tactile feedback can be provided to a user and which in particular can provide a tactile simulation of surface structures.